Dakos Food Industries is bringing together two historic Greek food businesses under one corporate roof. The new group unifies Mylos Dakos and Ilios Pasta, setting up a new growth cycle for a family company with roots that go back 151 years.
The company is planning 25 million euros in investments through 2030, all funded from internal resources, while aiming to double the share of international sales in total revenue by the end of the decade.
A family business rebuilt for growth
The story begins in 1875, when Ioannis Dakos built a flour mill near Avlona, Attica. Five generations later, his great-granddaughters, Athanasia and Katerina Dakou, are now shaping the next phase of the business through the creation of Dakos Food Industries.
The new structure brings together flour and pasta production in a single corporate entity. Management says the merger is designed to create synergies across production, supply chains and decision-making, while also speeding up execution.
Investment plan through 2030
Most of the capital spending will go into the company’s flour milling facilities in Avlona, where the group plans to invest 20 million euros between 2026 and 2030. The money will fund building extensions, machinery upgrades, larger storage capacity and modernization of raw material silos.
The Avlona site currently operates two milling units and has storage capacity for 20,000 tons of grain. Another 5 million euros will be directed to Ilios’ pasta factory in Metamorfosi, where production has already been modernized in recent years.
Export growth at the center
Exports currently account for 21% of sales, with products reaching more than 30 countries across five continents. The company’s target is to lift that share to 42% by 2030, making international demand a far more important growth engine.
Dakos Food Industries is betting on the Ilios brand rather than private label partnerships. The company also highlights the use of 100% Greek durum wheat as a key differentiator, now emphasized on its new packaging.
Competing in a concentrated market
The new investment comes at a time when the Greek milling sector has shrunk sharply. Of the 12 companies active in the 1990s, only four remain today, and just two are still fully Greek-owned.
The business environment remains challenging. Geopolitical tensions have pushed transport costs higher, and packaging film prices have risen 21%. Even so, the company says it is absorbing those costs rather than passing them on to customers.
A 151-year industrial line
The family’s industrial path has evolved through several milestones: a stone mill in 1924, a roller mill in 1949, a fifth semolina mill in Greece in 1980, and later the move into specialty flours in 1992. In 1995, Panagiotis Dakos acquired the pasta company Ilios, founded in 1932, from the Sakkalis brothers.
